The present invention relates generally to emergency response systems, and more particularly to systems and methods for organic organized emergency response.
Current disaster preparedness plans and programs have five, or more, well-known deficiencies.
First, current emergency response capacity is not sufficient to handle the major disasters. The vast majority of current response capability depends on usable infrastructure, particularly navigable roads. Our hospitals are sized to handle day-to-day loads, not catastrophic loads, and not disasters where their own staff is personally affected as well. In seismic disasters immediate responses are required in non-medical areas such as fire control, evaluation of structural damage, freeing trapped and pinned victims, search and rescue, identifying and mitigating gas leaks, sanitation, first-aid, and the management of safe water and food resources. Medical triage and first aid would also be required. This will all happen in neighborhoods cut-off from logistics and reliable communications. People need to have methods to sustain themselves, and help themselves, until local, State and Federal emergency services are fully operational.
Second, civilians only rarely adequately prepare themselves and their homes for disasters, despite the flood of information and encouragement from the government.
Third, most immediate disaster response and recovery efforts are handled by residents in the affected area, while by far the largest investment in preparedness and response resources are for National and State responders that will move into a disaster area only days or weeks or months after a disaster.
Fourth, the typical response plan assumes the importing and implementation of a new disaster response Command & Control (C&C) system into the affected area. The locals, however, may not, and likely won't, understand the purpose, procedures, and vocabulary of responder's C&C system. On the other hand, the professional responders likely won't understand the survivor's impromptu organizational structure, vocabulary and processes. Any impromptu organizational structure may also have difficulties in formation and execution, as, for example, frictions between possible participants may result in decreased participation and/or efficiencies. These frictions may arise as there may be disagreements as to the form of organization, the contours of functional roles within the organization, and who will fill those functional roles. Further inefficiencies will also arise simply due to the time to be taken in arriving at organizational structure and roles. In addition, the members of an impromptu organization simply may not know how to respond to what to them may be a novel and unexpected situation outside the realm of their normal experience.
Finally, community social organizations are usually intact and functional after a disaster. They have tremendous value for organizing relief efforts, but are usually ignored by responders coming from the outside who wish to establish their own organizational structure.
In Los Angeles it is anticipated that an earthquake that will disrupt physical access to the affected area by damaging roads and communications infrastructure will hit California in the near future. The massive increase in demand and lack of infrastructure will overwhelm emergency services. As a result, the average resident will not have access to emergency services for up to two weeks. The CERT (Civilian Emergency Response Training) concept was developed and implemented by the City of Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) in 1985 to provide some basic training in disaster survival and rescue skills in order to improve the ability of citizens to survive until professional responders could arrive. They recognized that citizens would very likely be on their own during the early stages of a catastrophic disaster. CERT also recognizes that there are insufficient civilian volunteers in the case of a major disaster.
The city of Los Angeles' Civilian Emergency Response Training (CERT) program states that after a major disaster neighborhoods are expected to be on their own for up to two weeks because of damaged infrastructure and lack of resources. Should weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) ever be used, professional responders would clearly be overwhelmed and civilian volunteers would be called upon to fill the gap for immediate and short term needs. The CERT program trains a few thousand civilian volunteers per year to respond to natural disasters, but even LA's CERT officials recognize that there are insufficient trainees for a major disaster. And in any case trained civilians and first-responders would have to choose between performing their duties, teaching others, or managing neighborhood rescue efforts.